# Sumner v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.

> Michigan Supreme Court · December 30, 1986 · 427 Mich. 505

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9665302

## Case

- **Full name:** Sumner v. the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company; Knight v. Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Michigan; Robson v. General Motors Corporation
- **Court:** Michigan Supreme Court
- **Decided:** December 30, 1986
- **Citations:** 427 Mich. 505; 398 N.W.2d 368
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurring in part by Williams
- **Judges:** Williams, Levin, Cavanagh, Archer, Brickley, Boyle, Riley
- **Cited by:** 90 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Red flag:** Overruled by Garg v. MacOmb County Community Mental Health Services, 472 Mich. 263 (2005).
- Negative treatments: 1
- Distinguished by: 0
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9665302

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- stating that the Michigan Supreme Court adopted the continuing violations doctrine developed by the federal courts
- noting the analogous relationship of the MHCRA to Title VII, and stating that “[i]t is therefore appropriate that we, as we have done in the past in discrimination cases, turn to federal precedent for guidance”

## Opinion text

Williams, C.J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part). While also in agreement with the majority’s adoption of the continuing violation theory of employment discrimination, I write separately because the majority’s result in Knight seems inconsistent when compared with those in Sumner and Robson. Consistent application of the continuing violation theory would allow all three plaintiffs in these consolidated cases to recover.
In my opinion, the disparity in application be *561 tween Sumner and Robson on the one hand and Knight on the other hand occurs because Knight was decided by special verdict of the jury and in Sumner and Robson the trial court was the trier of fact. In fact, the majority states:
The verdict of the jury, however, leaves us no alternative but to conclude that the discharge from that assignment was a neutral act, and therefore only the "present effect of past discrimination” .... [Ante, p 544. Emphasis added.]
The jury used a special verdict form on which the crucial instruction stated that the jury should find for the plaintiff if "Knight’s rejection of McGuire’s advances was a significant influencing factor in her termination . . . .” Ante, p 523. Compare this instruction to the trial court’s finding in Sumner that
the acts of racial harassment and the act of discharge, although separate acts, were so closely related that they were a continuous course of conduct,
and that
the continuing racial abuse and harassment which precipitated the altercation, were a series of separate but related acts and were, therefore, a continuous course of conduct up to and including the time of Claimant’s discharge.
This is not to say that Ms. Knight’s allegations were the same as Mr. Sumner’s, but that she should have had the benefit of a jury instruction more closely aligned to the continuing violation theory.
I would remand Knight to the trial court to fashion an instruction or instructions consistent with the continuing violation theory of employment discrimination.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9665302. Public record. Not legal advice.